Lil Wayne -- Incarcerated in NY, Wanted in AZ

Lil Wayne had a perfectly good reason for missing his court date in Arizona today -- he's currently behind bars in New York. But Yuma County didn't care ... and issued a bench warrant for his arrest.

Wayne pled not guilty in the past to a litany of drug charges related to a January 2008 arrest, where DEA agents found 105 grams of marijuana, 29 grams of cocaine and 41 grams of ecstasy pills and a 40-caliber pistol on his tour bus.

Wayne had a court date today, but missed it cause of the whole "already in jail" thing.